Sharpe, Sir Alfred

▪ British colonial administrator

born May 19, 1853, Lancaster, Lancashire, Eng.

died Dec. 10, 1935, London

      English adventurer and colonial administrator who helped establish the British Nyasaland Protectorate (now Malaŵi) and obtain portions of central East Africa (Africa) (now in Zambia) for the British Empire.

      Sharpe went to the Shire Highlands, south of Lake Nyasa, in 1887 to hunt elephant and trade in ivory but immediately became involved in a war with Arab slave traders. When Nyasaland was made a British protectorate in 1889, Sharpe set out to enlist African allegiance to British colonization. He succeeded to the west, in all of what is now Zambia, and almost succeeded in Katanga, now in Congo (Kinshasa). During this period (1889–95) Sharpe explored and mapped Lake Mweru (in Zambia), the northern parts of Zambia, and Katanga. He was appointed vice consul of Nyasaland Protectorate in 1891 and governor in 1897. He retired from the colonial service in 1910.

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